Chapter 10 - You are really unlikeable in this lifetime (1/2)

I didn’t see Zhonghua again after that day. He seemed to be very angry with me. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say he had never liked me in this lifetime.

Chang’an was still too young that I couldn’t mine any information from him.

Nonetheless, he was able to solve the biggest question in my mind – Zhonghua’s master was a woman.

A woman.

After hearing this, I suddenly felt as though I had been betrayed. He clearly said he’d only let me seduce him. I had been seducing him with such perseverance, yet he was…

I was so upset that I stopped running to the force field’s boundary and shouting his name.

This went on until the day Liubo’s sky darkened with a miasma so thick that it kept me wide awake. I knew then that Hu’yi was attacking.

Chang’an was as anxious as an ant crawling on charcoals, crying that he would live and die with Liubo. Annoyed with his blabbering, I knocked him unconscious and locked him in the house. Soon after my stroll in the forest, I began to hear the commotion of fighting on the other side.

Le sigh, humans are so strange. If they wanted to kill each other, then they should just do it. Why must they torture my ears with their screams? They acted as if screaming could slay their opponents on the spot.

A loud boom went off at the same time the force field was reduced to ashes after suddenly lighting up. Someone floated in the air – his robe black and his long hair flowing. Hu’yi. He swept his eyes across the plum forest. When he detected me, he landed and said, “I’ve never liked owing anyone anything. You freed me, now I’ll free you. We are even from now on.”

Le sigh X 2. He was the Imperial Reverend’s reincarnation, no question about it. This habit of giving people unsolicited grace was exactly the same.

As I was about to open my mouth to say I wouldn’t go, a cold voice came behind us: “The both of you should give up dreaming about leaving Liubo.”

I turned around. Zhonghua was pointing his sword at Hu’yi, his face frigid: “Twenty years ago I had spared your life, yet how dare you attack Liubo! I shall send you to your end today.”

I watched the expression on his face as the uncomfortable feeling in me escalated.

I retreated two steps and hid behind Hu’yi, turning away from him.

Hu’yi stared at Zhonghua with something like a sneer. “I’ve no need for your favors.

You can easily kill me now that you have become The Most Reverend. But can those Liubo students of yours withstand the attack of the monsters waiting outside? Is everyone who seeks divinity as powerful as you?”

The murderous look on Zhonghua’s face intensified.

Hu’yi again spoke: “Zhonghua, if you can just promise me one thing, I will in turn assure you of a way for Liubo to repel the demons without hurting one soul. On top of that, my life will be yours to deal as you wish.”

Even I was surprised after listening to him, much less Zhonghua. He spent this much effort to attack Liubo just so he could give himself a bargaining chip against

Zhonghua? Suddenly, I became extremely curious about his request.

Zhonghua was silent for a moment. “What is it?”

“Free her so she can be reborn.” There seemed to be suppressed anger and sorrow in Huyi’s strained voice. “She should have been laid to rest a long time ago. Let her go!”

Upon hearing these words, Zhonghua’s face iced up even worse. “That’s out of the question.”

Hu’yi became infuriated. “No matter what, she had once been your master. She had taught and raised you up! You people have imprisoned her for twenty years. If this drags on any longer, she will cease to exist! Zhonghua, have you forged your heart into steel?”

I raised an eyebrow and glanced askance at Zhonghua, but all I saw was an expressionless face. “She fell in love with a demon and betrayed Liubo, leading to our suffering of a calamity. By our rules, she ought to be punished by having her soul locked away.”

Having her soul locked away. That meant her soul was bound so that it could not be taken away by the messenger ghosts, being held in the living world until it depletes to nothing. For souls, being trapped in the human world was an extremely cruel punishment. That was because once the soul evaporated, it would never again enter reincarnation. Nevertheless, this sorcery was as ordinary as ordinary could be in the underworld. That was because everything in the underworld was either a soul or a spirit. Messenger ghosts regularly used this spell on those who had sinned to bring them to trial before Yanwang.

I had assumed this sorcery was unknown in the human world, not expecting it was actually passed down through generations at Liubo.

Twenty years. That was enough to turn a soul to ashes…

Hu’yi gripped his fists.

I wondered for a moment. It was sacrilegious to lock away a living soul. As it was, Zhonghua hated Hu’yi and vice versa. This was likely his ‘meet though in enmity’ tribulation. At this point, if he didn’t let Hu’yi release the soul, when it dissipated in due time, Zhonghua would certainly be struck by 36 bolts of lightning. With his present body made of flesh and blood, I feared he wouldn’t even be able to withstand one strike.

At this thought, I patted Huyi’s shoulder: “What kind of soul is it? Do you know where they’re trapping it?”

Hu’yi turned around to face me. Zhonghua’s eyes were also on me as he said in utter contempt: “I suggest you don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

I pursed my lips, thinking to myself that this incarnation of Moxi’s was terribly unpleasant. And yet I couldn’t let him fail his trial just because he wasn’t nice in this lifetime. If he got struck by lightning now, then whom am I going to seduce next time?!

“Where is she?” I asked Hu’yi again.

Huyi’s eyes lit up. He had seen me destroy the entire Thousand-Lock Pagoda with one huff of breath. Too desperate at the moment to doubt me, he pointed to a tall and magnificent tower not too far from here and said, “At the top of the Million Story Tower. But she will still need someone to lead the way after breaking free…”

The Thousand-Lock Pagoda, the Million-Story Tower, were they supposed to never meet in life…? This was a little too cruel. I patted his shoulder telling him to rest assured, at the same time glancing at Zhonghua’s increasingly murderous intent.

“Stall him.” Clashes began to sound behind me. I ignored them, only hoping Hu’yi could buy a little more time.

I was born in the underworld. Even though I wasn’t a messenger ghost, I was born knowing how to escort spirits… maybe just not very professionally.

After climbing to the top of the Million-Story Tower, I noticed a memorial tablet standing on the incense altar in the middle of an open space. Nothing was written on it, but it was very clean. It was apparent someone often came by to dust it.

I looked around without finding where Zhonghua’s master’s soul was locked. While I was scratching my head, I suddenly caught a tiny glimmer shining down from above. I looked up to the light where I saw a candle fixed on the ceiling beam. Above it was a painting – someone’s portrait, it seemed.

I jumped onto the beam and carefully studied that painting.

It was depicting a woman dressed in white from the back. Her apparel didn’t differ too much from what the priests at Zhonghua’s place were wearing nowadays. She was holding onto a branch of plum blossoms while slightly leaning forward, as if to smell the flowers.